Owly wrote:ardee wrote:
This post is intellectually dishonest.
To make Gola, Arizin and Rodgers out to be really valuable teammates based on their HOF status is dishonest. Gola and Arizin were near the end of their primes when they played with Wilt in the early 60s. Rodgers was an awful offensive player. Couldn't shoot or really score in anyway, never cracked 40% from the field.
And Thurmond was in his rookie and sophomore year as Wilt's backup when they played together.
The best teammate Wilt had in his prime was Hal Greer, who is probably about the same level as Sampson and definitely worse than Drexler.
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Particularly so because it it compares accolades without the context of league size (and particularly All-Stars whereby there was a maximum of three all-stars per team which for much of the 60s meant you were depending on your conference guaranteed 3 players, or once the Chicago-Baltimore franchise arrived in the east merely likely to get 2 or 3) whilst ignoring the more representative all-NBA teams.
I wouldn't deny Hakeem didn't have the supporting casts to succeed in the late 80s, but to imply Wilt did based on HOF (Rodgers long, long after the fact, Gola based on HS/college, Arizin based primarily on his 50s, though still effective in the early 60s) is misguided.
Based on the evidence I've seen, and keep finding, these guys were good players.
I wanted to address these arguments. The more I read about these guys, relative to competition they were quality players with plenty of accomplishments, not just All Star or HOF, but All NBA selections, Top 50 player selections etc.
Gola played with Wilt from age 27-29, and was 2nd team all NBA the year before. He wasn't even in his thirties yet. He was also one of the greatest college players of all time.
La Salle
Gola was one of the most talented collegiate athletes in Philadelphia sports history. He came to national attention while playing for the hometown La Salle University Explorers men's basketball team.
Gola starred as a college freshman and led La Salle to the 1952 N.I.T. championship.[2] Gola paced the Explorers to the NCAA basketball championship in 1954 and was named Tournament MVP. That same season he was selected as National Player of the Year. As a senior, Gola helped La Salle finish as the runner-up in the 1955 NCAA Tournament. He averaged 20.9 points and 19.0 rebounds during 115 games and holds the NCAA record with 2,201 career rebounds. At 6'6" (198 cm), Gola was clearly a forward who could shoot/score, rebound and defend, but he also had the ballhandling (dribbling, passing) skills of a guard, and with his shooting range and All-Pro defensive skills, could play just as well in the backcourt. He was inducted into the La Salle Hall of Athletes in 1961 and the Big 5 Hall of Fame in 1986. In 1977, Tom Gola was inducted into the National Polish American Sports Hall of Fame.[3] Gola was listed on "ESPN's Countdown to the Greatest" College basketball players as #17.
NBA
After a phenomenal college career, Gola turned pro with the Philadelphia Warriors as a territorial draft pick. He teamed with All-Pros Paul Arizin and Neil Johnston to lead the Warriors to an NBA championship in 1956. He gained praise for concentrating on defense, passing and rebounding and allowing the other two to be the chief scorers during these years.
In 1959, Johnston temporarily retired due to a knee injury and the Warriors added seven-foot superstar Wilt Chamberlain. Again sacrificing himself for his team, Gola helped the Warriors back to the NBA Finals, but they could not beat the star-studded Boston Celtics during his seasons in the early 1960s even with Chamberlain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_GolaPaul Arizin was 31- 33 and All NBA 2nd team Wilt's first year (before that he was All NBA first team for three years).
Professional career
After being selected by the Warriors with their first pick in the 1950 NBA Draft, Arizin averaged 17.2 points per game in his rookie season and was named NBA Rookie of the Year — a designation not currently sanctioned by the NBA for the 1950-51 season. He became one of the greatest NBA players of the 1950s, leading the NBA in scoring during the 1951–52 and 1956–57 seasons and leading the league in field goal percentage in 1951-52. Arizin sat out the 1952–53 and 1953–54 NBA seasons due to military service in the Marines during the Korean War.[4]
Arizin became famous for his line-drive jump shots, and teamed with center Neil Johnston to form the best offensive one-two punch in the NBA at the time, leading the Warriors to the 1956 NBA title. He also played with scoring star Joe Fulks early in his career, and with Philadelphia legends Tom Gola and Wilt Chamberlain toward the end of his career in the early 1960s. Arizin chose to retire from the NBA rather than move with the Warriors to San Francisco. At the time of his retirement, no player had retired from the game with a higher scoring average (21.9 points per game) in his final season. This record would stand until Bob Pettit's retirement in 1965 following a season in which he averaged 22.5 PPG.
Arizin played in a total of 10 NBA All-Star Games (he was the 1952 NBA All-Star Game MVP) and was named to the All-NBA First-Team in 1952, 1956, and 1957.
After retiring from the NBA, Arizin played for three seasons with the Camden Bullets of the Eastern Professional Basketball League, who won the 1964 title. Averaging over 20 points per game each season, Arizin was named the EBL MVP in 1963, was named to the EBL All-Star First Team in 1963 and 1964, and was named to the EBL All-Star Second Team in 1965.[5]
Arizin was named to the NBA 25th Anniversary Team in 1971. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1978,[6] and was selected to the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History in 1996.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_ArizinHe may have been in his thirties but he was still a good enough talent to make the 50 Greatest Players List and All NBA several times before. I didn't grow up in the era, but I have a hard time seeing him as a quota all star with those other accomplishments relative to his competition in that league.
Guy Rodgers was age 24 - 29 (prime imo) and an excellent play-maker for Wilt. His strength was passing not scoring:
Guy William Rodgers (September 1, 1935 – February 19, 2001) was an American professional basketball player born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He spent twelve years (1958–1970) in the NBA, and was one of the league's best playmakers in the early to mid-1960s. Rodgers led the NBA in assists twice, and placed second six times. [1]
Rodgers played alongside the great Wilt Chamberlain from 1959 through 1964, and during Chamberlain's famous 100-point game, he led the way with 20 assists.[2] In the 1962–63 season, Rodgers led the NBA in assists with an average of 10.4 per game, and played in his first NBA All-Star game. On March 14 of that same season, Rodgers tied Bob Cousy's record of 28 assists in a single game — a record that wasn't broken until nearly 15 years later.[3]
Rodgers was the point guard on the 1964 Warriors team that made the NBA finals but eventually lost the series to the Boston Celtics four games to one. In 1966 Rodgers was traded to the expansion team, the Chicago Bulls. Rodgers played the 1966–67 season in Chicago and was named NBA All-Star for the fourth and final time in his career. That same season, Rodgers handed out a then-NBA record 908 assists, which is still the Chicago Bulls single-season record.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_RodgersNate Thurmond average 16.5 points and 18.1 rebounds his sophomore year in 41.2 mpg in the "backup role"(the all star year I posted). How can that be downplayed?
http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... mna01.htmlHal Greer was his best teammate and no mention of Jerry West (All NBA 1st team x4 2nd team x1 and Def. 1st team x 4, 2nd team x1 playing with Wilt) or Elgin Baylor (All NBA 1st team x2)?
Just an accusation without acknowledging the Hakeem vs Wilt playoff scoring advantage (even with Wilt's pace advantage)?
If there were all star quotas then please provide a link, I appreciate learning.
But even if that's true, so far I have to agree to disagree based on the evidence I've found (and still finding) Wilt had great team support relative to Hakeem. Those guys were quality players and did contribute imo.
